Today I had another early start at the office to keep track of the research project I am supposed to work on full time. In this way I managed to make time for the preparation of a couple of short tutorials for the two students I am currently supervising and for the course on developing teaching skills I started attending last week.

I was really looking forward to the lecture on supporting students with individual learning needs. After covering the general challenges the students with different abilities encounter in an academic environment in groups, we had to try to perform some exercises to get a better understanding of what kind of hurdles a person with dyslexia has to face when it comes to writing and reading. The wide spectrum of people with mental health illnesses was also presented at the end. Some guidelines and suggestions on how to support students with different abilities were also shown throughout the lecture. We were also informed about the shocking lateness it took to consider unlawful the discrimination against people with different abilities (September 2002).

This very enlightening experience made me admire even more the resilience of people with different abilities.

I started attending the first core module of a series of modules to develop teaching skills at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The lecturer gave an excellent talk in the Council Chamber of the Council House at UEA. I will try to wrap it in few sentences because the day is ending soon. Those three hours flew so fast thanks to the nice chats with other colleagues, a refreshing cup of tea with milk and a wonderful talk from a tutor of the charity organisation The Brilliant Club (www.thebrilliantclub.org). I am really looking forward to the next module!

After a nice, relaxing and quite long lunch break I was visited by two master students I have recently started supervising in order to help them learning how to use Molecular Dynamics simulations and other Computational Chemistry tools. So three more hours flew away and I found myself dealing with my own research for almost two hours. Very long day at work, but I really enjoyed from the early start this morning until I left.

Here is a modified version of the figure 2 from Murtola et al. 2009 article:

Annular shell of CO molecules and packing of the hydrophobic core of CO molecules with POPC and apoA-I molecules. (Top row) Annular CO molecules, defined as those molecules within 8 Å of any protein atoms or beads, are shown with a green space filling representation for the ms-HDL particle simulated for 8 ns at 310 K and 1 atm (after 10 ns at 410 K and 1 atm) (a) and for the CG ms-HDL particle simulated for 800 ns (3.2 μs in effective time) at 310 K and 1 atm (b), respectively. Δ40 apoA-I molecules are space filling in skyblue and cyan. Proline residues are space filling in yellow. Central CO molecules were observed only in the CG model (B, space filling in purple). (Middle rows) The packing of CO molecules in atomistic and CG ms-HDL particles shows the interdigitation and intercalation of CO molecules with POPC and apoA-I molecules, respectively. (Bottom row) Licorice and bead representations of the atomistic and CG CO molecule with its different moieties highlighted in red (short acyl chain), green (sterol ring), and blue (oleate chain), respectively. The percentage of the average number of contacts of different parts of the CO molecule with the protein is also shown with the same color code used to represent the different moieties of the CO molecule.

I have been doing research mainly devoted to the study of discoidal and spheroidal HDL particles containing apoA-I using all atom (AA) and coarse-grained (CG) MD simulations for the last eight years. I have acquired a substantial expertise in the molecular modeling and MD simulations of lipoproteins and lipid membranes using VMD, a software package widely used to visualize and to build molecular models of many relevant biological molecules, and two of the most used molecular dynamics software packages such as NAMD and GROMACS, respectively.

I have gained experience to run AA and CG MD simulations of model discoidal and spheroidal HDL thanks to the training received during my postdoctoral experience. The collaboration with professors and researchers experts in the field has also improved my knowledge of the MD technique and of the biological and biophysical properties of HDL particles, and it has also contributed to the majority of my publications.